


Six of One (half a dozen of the other)

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Beatlemania, Blow Jobs, First Time, Hand Jobs, Intoxicated Sex, M/M, Paris - Freeform, Period Typical Attitudes, Recreational Drug Use, Stupid besotted boys, THAT acid trip, wanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-13 22:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19260802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: Maybe it’s the unexpected nature of it all, the spontaneity, the John-ness.





	1. Paris, 1961

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stardust_made](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/gifts).



> All my lovin’ to stardust_made for encouraging this madness. 
> 
> And happy 77th birthday, Sir Paul. You make this world a better place. Sorry I spend so much time fantasizing about your sex life.
> 
> This story is complete and will be posted in 6 installments spanning from 1961 to 1967. Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about.

Paris has got Paul all turned around. 

He didn’t think that was possible anymore. He’s been to Hamburg twice and played all over the north of England besides. He’s nineteen bleeding years old, for Christ’s sake. A place like Paris shouldn’t be bowling him over, but it is.

In fairness, they were supposed to be in Spain. Maybe Spain wouldn’t have bowled him over. Maybe it’s the unexpected nature of it, the spontaneity, the John-ness.

In any case, here they are. Here they are, and here they’ve been, and Paul’s not sure which night this is, five or six maybe. John swears it’s the ninth but he’s been saying every day since Liverpool is his birthday, and Paul hasn’t quite adjusted to this Lennonian Calendar. His head is spinning from it all: the wine, the sights, the beauty of this city that looks like it hasn’t seen a war in forty, fifty years, and while it’s not exactly warm, being October, the ubiquitous white stone holds the sun and seems to make everything lighter and brighter. There’s a sense of forever here, even as he can’t quite find his bearings. 

Paul’s head is spinning and he is uniquely, unequivocally happy. 

It’s not quite late but they’re back at their little room all the same. They’ve been talking for hours, Paul can feel it in his throat. All the air in his body is new, he’s been drawing in so much to exhale all the grand truths that come to him so easy these days, everything’s cycled through, there’s no place for staleness, here, no room to hold on to anything less than extraordinary. He feels like he just finished a double set at the Top Ten, except it’s better than that. And when their jackets are tossed on the chair and all four of their shoes in an unordered pile at the door, it’s like sinking into a hot bath, dropping down onto the foot of the bed while John takes his place at the head. Kitty-corner to each other John stretches out his legs while Paul hugs his own to his chest. 

Then John’s next words penetrate the warm bubble he’s got around himself.

“God, I’d kill for a shag right now.”

Paul blinks, and holds on to his knees. The thought of trying for a pull hadn’t entered his mind even once and he doesn’t think he’s so stupid as to have missed John’s cues, if John was trying to ditch him, or trying to rope him into a scheme. Had they even seen any girls at that cafe? None to make an impression on him, anyway. He finally thinks to look at John’s face and the wicked smirk he’s got on makes Paul wish for a shoe to throw at him.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks. “Who’d you kill, then?”

“You.” John barks a laugh. “Scaring birds away with that mug o’yours. Do away with you and get meself a more obliging bedfellow.”

Paul laughs too. A death threat from John Lennon; he hadn’t thought this day could get any better. “Obliging, is it, that’s what you’re after?”

“Oh, aye.” John bobs his head like a maniac, pulling crips. “V’heard it’s ever so much better when they’re obliging.”

Paul kicks out his leg, clipping John’s shin. “Get on.”

John goes still, then waggles his eyebrows. “S’that an obligation?”

Paul shrugs with his eyebrows, and finds his hand already rubbing at his thigh. “Could do with a wank meself.”

Every other time they’ve done this, they’ve been in a group of blokes; somebody’s empty flat, somebody’s spare bedroom, somebody’s record playing. Except for that one time, though it doesn’t count — that one time at Paul’s house, John on Mike’s bed, the Marvelettes crooning on Paul’s record player. 

Now, with his head tipped back against the wall, Paul stares at the ceiling and listens to John. His friend isn’t quiet, he already knows this, but without other blokes or music or any other sound, it’s like there’s nothing between him and John but the two or three feet of empty air. John’s at the head, of course, leaned into the corner with his legs kicked out while Paul’s sideways to him at the other end with his knees still up, more or less hiding himself from view, not that John would look...

“Fuck,” John draws out the word long and low, like the twang of a base note that holds the song together. His voice is the most familiar thing in Paul’s world, he could tune his guitar to John, set his watch by him. Or speed up the motion of his own left hand and find his prick coming fully hard along with the heady sound of John; flesh on flesh and air sucked from the room to become his breath, to become his voice. 

Paul’s not thinking about anything when it hits him – that sudden twist and burst in his belly like an unexpected chord change that turns out to be the only possible answer to the chorus. He drops his knees to the bed and groans, back arching, the top of his skull rolling against the wall as he swears and shakes. Before he’s even halfway over the finish line, a pressure on his thigh urges him along, faster than before. He sucks in a breath and his eyes roll shut. John’s making sounds like a broken tea kettle and the thought is so hysterical that Paul starts shaking. The roll of laughter in his chest translates to the grip of his hand on his prick and he’s still coming, spreading his legs wide to press against John’s foot and gasping as he falls from an impossible height, falling and falling and soaring and the air beneath his wings is John’s breath, John’s ragged exhalations.

Until it’s not and they’re still again, quiet but for their heartbeats and their panting, crude in the dingy little room. Paul’s made a wreck of his shirt and he pulls it off, cleaning himself with a grimace and wondering what he’s to wear tomorrow. His head hits the end of the bed and he curls up there, still trembling a bit, vague uncertainty about the morning his only thought as he hears and feels John squirming about at the other end of the bed. Eventually John throws the second pillow at his head and they sleep that way, ass to elbow as they have so many times before.


	2. England, 1963

The hotel room barely fits the four of them but there the four of them are any old way. Was six, but Mal and Neil fucked off an hour ago and now Ringo and George are sitting on one bed, playing cards, while John sits like Paul’s mirror, glasses and all, frowning at his strings.

Paul’s making chords the way he used to make beans on toast -- without thinking, without questioning. It’s sustenance, these days, as things begin to happen that Paul will never admit he didn’t expect. 

Last night they’d tried to go out. The goodly crowds outside the hotel had had something to say about that. Something to scream about it, rather. It made Paul’s spine itch to see John’s shoulders after, hunched as they had to go back in after nearly getting trampled and after fighting with Eppy about it before that, about having a night out. John had gone to bed and his look warned poor George right off, kept him in Paul and Ringo’s room until the wee hours, ‘til Paul was ready to smack him. 

“Could fucking kill for a shag.” John’s voice is a note on the wind, twined in with the notes of his guitar, and Paul could hear him anywhere.

“Oh, yeah?” Paul doesn’t look at him, but he knows that John will see him smile. “Who’d you murder this time, then?”

“Them two.” 

From the corner of his eye, Paul sees John nod towards Geo and Rings. He plucks a few notes at random, fighting off each word until he can’t help but understand what John is saying.

The two of them are meant to be sharing tonight, for the first time in ages. This is Paul’s bed they’re sitting on, it’s John’s that the other two have colonized. Paul entertains a momentary absurd fancy: he and John alone in the room, alone in bed, looking down on two bloodied bodies huddled on the floor. It’s John’s voice that does it, it’s the way John says things and Paul believes them. Like bleeding 1984, being around John is like a lesson in doublethink. 

“Tell them to get lost then,” Paul says at last, as though he’s finished working out a tricky progression and can finally tune in to a verbal conversation.

“You tell ‘em,” John says without looking at him, “Paul McBossy.”

“I’ll murder you.”

“You won’t.” John’s eyes are suddenly on him and just as suddenly fluttering, his eyelids batting like butterfly wings and his mouth forms such a perfect pout that Paul laughs, Paul aches, Paul is the sixteen-year-old kid that John Lennon turns to and says, ‘Whatcha reckon?’ and then listens to what comes out of his mouth. 

“I won’t,” Paul agrees, and stands. He stretches out his aching back and says, “Ey-ya lads, we’re clearing out, acoustics and all that, be next door, be good and—”

“And fuck off very kindly,” John says, yawning and ambling towards the door. “Macca?”

Paul looks because he can’t help it; looks and sees the sting of it on George’s face, but maybe it’s just his inheritance — those eyebrows — maybe he couldn’t ever look another way, because the next moment he’s slapping a card down on the covers and crowing as Ringo reluctantly shoves a pile of coins across to him.

In the adjoining room, two of George’s guitars and what looks like half of his clothes are strewn over one bed. Paul locks the door and the noise of the bolt is lost in the groan of bedsprings as John throws himself across the other bed, luxuriant as a cat. It’s been a few months since the wedding, still a few to go ‘til the baby, and the first time since he learned about either that Paul’s seen John like this. Maybe cos he hasn’t looked. Hasn’t seemed right.

“Fancy a wank?” Paul says, because he knows that in a hundred years John’s not going to be the one to say it.

They end up side by side on the bed, because it’s the only spot not covered in clothes, ashtrays, or instruments. John had his pants shoved down around his thighs before Paul had fully settled so he didn’t feel awkward doing the same. Paul’s sitting to John’s right, which means that after a moment they have to shuffle and resettle so that their elbows aren’t knocking each other. He can’t feel the heat radiating off John so readily but otherwise it’s good -- the constant reminder of what they’re doing would have put him right off, hard to concentrate on getting off when your pal’s rhythm is disrupting your own. 

He’d carried in a bottle of something from the other room and reaches for it now, taking a pull of the liquor with his right hand while his left keeps on pulling at his prick. Daring a look at John, he offers it with a tilt of his head then they’re each reaching, a bit awkwardly, across their bodies to exchange it. Shoulders pressed together John takes a long drink.

“Next time let’s take opposite sides, yeah?” John’s grinning at him. John’s grinning at him while he’s got his cock out, he’s got his cock in his hand and his cheeks are flushed, what Paul can see of his chest is flushed as well. The two undone buttons have left his shirt all askew and he looks obscene, he looks like Paul’s never seen him in sweat-soaked leathers, in bloodied teeth. John’s grinning at him. Because they’re here in this together. It’s not an accident, it’s not a whim. 

“Fuck,” John rasps, and Paul doesn’t know when he closed his eyes but they’re flying open now, open and fixed on John’s face, the tension in his jaw, the sweat on his brow. “Fuck. I’d pay money for someone else’s hand right now, you know what I mean? It’s like me prick is saying ‘Oh, you again? Fuck off.’”

Paul laughs, the sound is hysterical, and the hitching of his chest transfers to the rising of his hips and suddenly he’s all worked up. “How much would you pay?”

John’s head rolls towards him, they’re both leaning back against the wall, both watching each other with lidded eyes. “Dunno, what’s the going rate ‘round here?”

“How should I know?”

John barks a laugh that ends in a gasp, his eyes fluttering for only a moment before refocusing on Paul. “Course, forgive me. Pretty Paulie never pays, one look at that face and...”

And what? 

“Fifty quid.”

“Eh?” John blinks, and Paul thinks for a moment that his eyelids look so tender. 

“Fifty quid,” Paul repeats. “I’d do it for fifty quid.” His voice is confident, brash even, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if John says it’s too much.

But John only watches his face, leaving Paul to wonder if he’s as concentrated in not looking at Paul’s hand as Paul is in ignoring the way John’s is moving in his peripheral vision.

“Done,” John finally says, and makes a noise low in his throat, almost a growl, and Paul doesn't have to look to know that his hand has sped up.

Paul shudders, and when he looks again John’s got his head tipped back, knees sprawled wide. And from there, Paul doesn’t know where to look. He looks down but then has to wonder, is it queer to watch yourself? He’s always a bit liked it, but he doesn’t want John to think anything. He tries to look up to the ceiling but the constant steady motion at his side draws his eyes down, down...

John’s cock looks different to his own. Can’t tell like this if it’s bigger or anything but it’s different. Darker. And the way John handles it is different from the way Paul does his. What would it be like to have a different cock? To suddenly have something so foreign in hand, to learn a different way, like getting to the same destination by a different route. He thinks of cutting across the park with John that first time, scaling the rock walls that had always before defined the lines of in and out, trying not to let on that he’d never once considered taking the shortcut that had lain there so obvious all the years before.

Paul’s head thumps back against the wall and he groans. Beside him, John’s breath turns into sounds, turns into a word, and the word sounds like a question. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Paul breathes the answer, and then it’s like he found his long-lost voice because he’s swearing out loud, legs sprawling wider and the contact with John is spurring him on. He imagines that he can feel John’s hands through the rhythmic tensing of his thigh and when he comes he slumps against the bed, leaning into John, weightless, and he hears John moan around his name. His own name. Paul.

They’re slack and clumsy trying to clean themselves up when John mumbles, “Couple of bob at least.”

“Eh?”

“Couple of bob. Worth a couple of bob, I mean. Fifty quid though, dunno, Macca...”

Paul laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, doubling over and clutching his stomach, clutching at John, the world turning somersaults around them as they fall into bed.


	3. Somewhere, 1964

In theory, Paul is bothered by the fact that he doesn’t know where they are. 

 

It’s not likely to end well, either because he’s so high that he won’t come down or because they’re truly somewhere they oughtn’t be. Neither thought is comforting. But neither thought can stand up to the sight of John, relaxed like a cat in a huge, plush armchair, hands rubbing his thighs.

 

_ It’s obscene, _ Paul has the presence of mind to call it what it is, the word familiar by now in its close relations to one John Lennon.  _ He looks obscene. _

 

“I’d pay good money for a hand on me prick right now.” John’s looking only at him.

 

There’s no one else to look at. It turns out they’re alone in this room. This unfamiliar room. Paul should feel panicked, trapped, but John is in front of him, John is rubbing his thighs, John’s lips are moving, and John looks obscene. 

 

“What’s that?” Paul asks. He needs a replay, it’s like asking George M for a replay, that’s what it is, a check to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. John repeats himself then, he says exactly what Paul thought he said, and Paul says — offers — says — “Fifty pounds?” As though he’s making it up. As though they hadn’t agreed on that sum a year ago, as though they hadn’t made a dozen, a hundred odd oblique jokes about it since. 

 

John squints at him and Paul recognizes it. The look, the rarity of it. Good humour and ready to tease, defenses abandoned. “Is that the going rate these days? Hasn’t it risen a bit, god save the queen and all?”

 

Paul shrugs, trying to look demure, as though he’s saying, ‘For you...?’

 

John laughs, showing all his teeth, his body shaking. He’s a magnet. He’s the bleeding North Star. By the time John looks at him again Paul is ten feet closer than he was a moment ago. John licks his lips. “I couldn’t afford you.”

 

One more step brings Paul between John’s legs. The carpet is rough under his knees, even through his trousers. He’s quite aware that under these terms he’s the bird here, the trick, and he’s quite aware that it should bother him, should enrage him maybe, or at least scare the hell out of him. Bob Wooler’s blood had been as red as anything Paul’d ever seen, anyway. 

 

But he knows what he sees, what he’s seen. He hasn’t ever been here before, had this view of things, but since that first time in the hotel bed he’s had his share of times to see John seeing. Seeing him, watching him. He knows where John’s eyes go and it’s not to the window or the ceiling or to some other place where there’s a sign reading ‘a hand is a hand is a hand.’ He’s seen John’s eyes catch on his cock, seen the way John watches as he does for himself, and he knows that whatever this is, John’s spiteful, biting comments about Paul’s pretty face aren’t the half of it.

 

He gets John’s flies open and his trousers half-off and he can’t look away. His hand around John’s cock. John fucking Lennon, his genius of a best friend, his partner, his infuriating mate who’s got half the world up in arms and the other half wanting to go to bed with him. But they can’t have him, no. Paul’s having him, though. Paul’s got him wanton, absurd, powerless.

 

John writhes and sucks in a breath, going completely still before he explodes, before he moans out the words, ‘Fuck Paul yes,’ in no particular order, repeating them in infinite combinations, the moment expanding and contracting until Paul is sitting back on his heels, ready to come himself without a hand on him.

 

The next day they’re all bickering over set order when John suddenly jerks his chin up, pins Eppy with a look.

 

“Oy, that money you promised, give it yeah?”

 

His grin when he passes a fifty pound note to Paul is no match for what Paul feels lighting him up from within. It’s like they’re kids again, sharing a private joke, a laugh only the two of them will get and John not giving a toss, not deigning to explain to the jealous onlookers. For a moment Paul wishes Stu was there to see, then tries to feel guilty for how he doesn’t feel guilty at all.

 


	4. Kenwood, 1965

Across the studio, Paul can see John arguing with Brian. He’s being an ass, Paul doesn’t need to hear him to know that. He’s winding Brian up. Nothing so unusual about that so Paul doesn’t know why his eyes are stuck to John, to the slope of his shoulder and the angular bites his arms take out of the space around him. 

 

Brian gives in quickly, it’s easy to see in the slant of his eyes. Something changes hands between them and then John’s back in place. Paul looks down the moment he sees John start to lift his head. He shuffles the papers in his hands, finding his place in the script again. It’s such a laugh, they’ve barely made any progress and the day’s half gone. What a difference from filming  _ Hard Day’s, _ the whole thing seemed to be over in a week and that was that. But now here they are, stuck in Twickenham recording over their lines they didn’t get right the first time or doing new ones altogether. And this — this makes Paul snicker and, against his better intentions, look up. 

 

John’s got a face on him and it’s directed right at Paul so Paul only holds up his script and points to what they’re up against next. In bold letters, underlined: “The four Beatles moan and mumble, being tossed about in the washroom, an unintelligible mix of grunts and cries.”

 

John grins, shark-like, and claps both hands over his crotch as he pulls a face like he’s howling in pain. Beside him, George cracks up and Ringo’s chortling into his tea. They’ll all be strung up by their ears if they delay this any longer and Paul knows, distantly, that he ought to feel bad. He thinks sometimes of what it would be like, how he would have to behave, if he weren’t a Beatle, but the fact is that he is, and while he’s all in favour of getting things done efficiently it’s not such a favour that he’ll give up the chance for a laugh about it. Of all the ridiculous things, later he’s got to be filmed once again arse naked but for a blanket in the shape of a gum wrapper. Hours of his life, this, all to get another thirty seconds to use in the film.

 

They finish at last. There’s been no music all day and Paul’s a bit twitchy, as George had pointed out when they last stopped for tea and a joint. There’s a stand of guitars over in one corner of the recording room, Paul doesn’t even know who they belong to but he wanders over as the rest are congregating by the door. Plans for going out and staying in and for a couple of days off are the topics of choice while Paul picks out a guitar — they’re all strung for right-handlers — and flips it, focused on remembering how to hit the chords upside down until John’s voice breaks out over the rest of them.

 

“Well lads, I’ve got fifty quid and no one spend it on, do me a favour, will ya?”

 

Paul’s heart has gone batty in his chest before he even realizes that John’s not shouting, not calling out to him, isn’t saying anything that anyone couldn’t hear. Not that anyone does seem to hear, see, cos when Paul looks up, the others are still gabbing on, no one’s looking at him except for John, and no one’s looking at John except for him. 

 

He follows John out the door five minutes later.

 

“Give it,” John says, as soon as they’re in the car, and he takes the guitar out of Paul’s hands. Paul hadn’t even realized he’d stolen it. Bloody well done, that. A cheap guitar he doesn’t want, he might be knocked down the Bridewell for it and serve him right. John grimaces as he strums it, hands it back for Paul to tune properly, then takes it again without a word. They ride to Kenwood surrounded by the notes and words they’ve been trying to find a home for these past weeks. 

 

“Ey,” Paul kicks at John’s foot just when he sees him about to sink back into melancholy, the weight of it all around him once again. “Forget it.” 

 

John sucks in a breath through his teeth like he’s about to give Paul the telling off of his life and Paul kicks him again. “Forget it, and once it’s forgotten, it’s bound to come barging back in to make itself heard, yeah? All them birds are on to something after all, innit, playing hard to get? Give it a shot ourselves, eh, see where it lands?”

 

“Give it a shot ourselves, eh.” John’s watching him, inscrutable, fiddling with something inside his jacket pocket. It’s a handful of notes, as it turns out. John fans them through his fingers and that’s what he was bargaining off Eppy earlier, Paul realises, his ears suddenly ringing. 

 

John’s opening the door almost before the car’s stopped in front of his house. A massive crowd of smoke billows out into the fresh air and Paul sucks in a deep breath, holding it as long as he can, wanting to float away on it. When he gets out of the car, he’s grinning.

 

“Hello, love.” He kisses Cynthia’s cheek without taking his hands out of his pockets. John’s still holding the purloined guitar and rambling on to Cyn, who looks tired despite her sunny smile. 

 

“Anyroad,” John cuts himself off, looking from Cyn to Paul and then casting his eyes toward the stairs. “We’ve got some you-know so off we go—”

 

“Heave-ho,” Paul finishes for him and they’re at the stairs, rising together, they’re in the attic, they’re side by side on the sofa in John’s room, the mellotron and the organ staring balefully back at them. The dubiously-acquired guitar is leaning in the rack with John’s Rickenbacker and Paul’s Hoffner, looking so out of place that Paul laughs out loud.

 

_ You’ve just seen a face _ , John teases.  _ In your life, _ Paul reposts. The jostle of words and chords and silent cues that save a million of each ends with John reaching across Paul, chest to chest and John’s arm outstretched so Paul might be forgiven thinking it’s the start of an embrace before better sense kicks in and he sees what John’s doing, he sees the roll of notes that makes up fifty quid, that makes up their magic number, sees it sitting there on the end table closest to his side of the sofa even as John retreats, hand wide open as though he’s not sure he meant to leave it there. 

 

Paul nearly grabs that hand. Paul nearly presses that hand down to his lap, to his prick that’s been whining for his attention ever since he got into John Lennon’s bloody car, had him close and all to himself. Paul nearly does. So very nearly.

 

John’s busy with his own trousers, belt and flies done away with and he doesn’t look surprised when Paul does the same. He doesn’t say anything when Paul doesn’t pretend he’s not looking. He doesn’t say anything when he reaches for Paul at the same moment Paul reaches for him.

 

John’s hand is warm. That’s the first thing. His hand is big, that’s the second. It’s his right hand, his strumming hand, the one he uses for everything — adjusting his glasses, punching, and, apparently, this. His hand is working on Paul’s prick like he wants to be doing it, that’s the third.

 

“This is handy, eh?” John says after a moment, and Paul nearly chokes on a laugh because John’s sounding like he’s oh so casual, like he’s commenting on how convenient it is that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with their guitars opposite. 

 

“A bit handy, yeah,” Paul answers, as his own hand does something to make John groan out loud, then does it again. 

 

Talking to Richie once, the poor lad going on about his grandmother training his left-handed habits out of him, Paul had felt something akin to jealousy, wishing that someone had tried to beat it out of him, too — ‘tried’ being the operative word, just something to make him realise earlier that his difference was special. The inconvenience of an upside down guitar might have been magical in a world where people were scared of what else it might mean.

 

Now, it’s a blessing. Now, it’s his hand on John and John’s hand on him and their shoulders pressed together, their legs right down to the ankle, it’s a joining nearly mystical for the way it works, unhindered, the way they work, unquestioned.

 

This is brand new but it feels older than either of them, and Paul thinks he hears music as they get each other off.

 


	5. New York, 1965

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: at the end, Paul has a brief drug-induced fantasy of a non-consensual encounter with John.

He’s so high. The pot, the crowd, the sheer volume of everything. Images of John playing the piano with his elbow are dancing in his head and for a moment Paul thinks they’re still on stage, wonders where George has gone to. But then someone tells him and he’s back in the moment, back in the hotel, laughing and laughing and wondering if it’s possible to die from this, just vanish in a puff of breath, become the laughter that means no one will notice, become the notice that hangs over everything in this room.

 

He’s still worried about George, not knowing where he is, it comes back to him at random moments. But then he remembers, and he sees Ringo, snoring on one of the beds, and that reminds him that everything’s okay. Ringo wouldn’t be snoring if anything was the matter.

 

He says that to John, and John’s smile bursts from his face, a sun of its own rising, and he’s so beautiful that even if Ringo weren’t snoring, Paul would be okay.

 

“Johnny, how much cash have you got?” he asks, suddenly urgent.

 

They’re lying on the floor, head to head, bodies stretched out in a languid right angle, like even here they’re making space for the other two. But forget the other two, and he thought he was saying it out loud but John’s talking over him, lazy and slow, “Couple of quid, maybe? Dunno, Paulie, dunno...” The rustling, Paul realises at last, is John digging into his pockets. He has a few coins nestled in his palm and he’s squinting at them, his eyes almost disappearing, and Paul surges up onto his elbow, closing his palm around John’s and mumbling, “That’s enough. Enough for me.”

 

He’d kiss John except that he wouldn’t. John lifts his hips as though he knew all along and then he’s bare, he’s an infant but for all the ways that he’s not, his cock is right there in Paul’s face, it’s flesh and dark blood and it’s a scent in the air that makes Paul sit up, nostrils flaring, it’s the only object worthy of his desire as he bows his head over John, curls over and around  him like a bass clef, takes him into his mouth like it’s all right, like it’ll all be all right.

 

It’s so hot, John’s prick, hot and hard, solid in his mouth like nothing else has ever been. Jane hadn’t known what she was doing either, Paul had teased her for it, Paul will die if John teases him for this. John’s knees have come up, he’s bracketing Paul, he’s closing him in like he’s a mountain and Paul’s found his valley, like John wants to keep him there. When Paul gags, John groans. When Paul pulls off to catch his breath, John whimpers. When Paul tries again, not going so deep, minding his tongue and his lips and sucking so hard he feels his cheeks go hollow, John cries.  It sounds like a sob, anyway. It sounds like something to justify this whole wet, sloppy business, and then John cries again and this time Paul hears his name and it feels like finally flipping that guitar back the right way round to find that everything makes sense now that he’s allowed to have it. 

 

He writhes against John, sucking at him and digging his fingers into his naked thighs, all of that skin just pressed up against him, all of that noise meant only for his ears. When John bucks into his mouth Paul lets him, lets himself choke and lets himself revel in the sound that comes out of John after. 

 

“Johnny,” he breathes, next time he pulls off. He’s got his forehead braced against John’s thigh and he’s got his eyes trained on John’s face.  _ Johnny. _

 

He’s not sure exactly when John passes out. If it’s while he’s coming or after, anyway. If the way he throws an arm over his eyes is reflex or instinct or muscle spasm, or if he's only sleeping. Paul collapses beside him, breathing hard, eyes unable to find purchase on his body. Desire ravages him as he tries to reason it out.

 

He’s tempted to leave John like this. Just like this. He’s debauched, used, spoiled. He’s wonderful. Up close, no glasses, eyes closed, not squinting or glaring, defenseless. Paul can’t help but wish everyone could see him like this; could see him so that Paul could remind them all that it didn’t used to be so rare, he didn’t used to have to hope and wish and trick John into letting himself be seen this way. 

 

He’s beautiful. He’s delicate. In a way. He’s a man, though, he’s a man like no one Paul’s ever known. He’s not Elvis because he’s better than Elvis. Paul remembers how desperately he used to want to be him. He wanted to  _ be _ John. Now...

 

Paul nearly wakes him up right then. 

 

Because now...he wants him. 

 

But he comes back to earth. It’s a stupid idea. A stupid idea that gives birth to another. He wants to crawl up beside John, he wants to force his sleeping mouth open. He wants to rut into John. He wants to get himself inside John, fuck into his mouth, leave him no room to say that he doesn’t want him, fuck away any thought that John might not want Paul the way that Paul wants John. 

 

He’s on his knees and elbows beside John before the wave washes over him, retreats, leaves him high and dry and sick with it. 

 

Ringo is still snoring.

 

He tidies John best he can, doing up his trousers and stumbling off to the bathroom. He runs the shower hot and can barely keep himself upright, doesn’t bother to muffle his cries or check himself and with his eyes closed he’s coming all over John’s face; with his eyes closed, the marks he leaves are as good as a handprint across John’s cheek.

 


	6. London, 1967

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in the end... I'd like to dedicate this story to my remarkable friend and writing partner, stardust_made. Knowing that I was writing this first and foremost to share with you was both liberating and inspiring. Thank you for encouraging me always and of course for beta-reading this. ♥ all my lovin' ♥

Paul goes to bed.

 

John’s words are all around him. “You won’t sleep!” A command? A prophecy? Paul keeps turning over, thinking that John must be right there, his voice is so clear.

 

His house has become the whole universe, and yet he can feel every inch of it, like it’s the tiniest living creature imaginable, it’s a single cell.

 

A cell — does that make John the warden? 

 

He’s in control of everything, Paul knows enough to know that much. John is an emperor, an emperor of everything. Everywhere — everywhen. 

 

Or perhaps — perhaps Paul can feel it all because  _ he himself _ is actually the house, and John is crawling around inside of him. That would explain how he knows with pinpoint precision exactly where John is at every moment. 

 

Moments. Time goes wonky. It gives him back to when it began. John tripping in the studio, John sitting out on  _ Getting Better _ , John looking right at him and saying without words, ‘Get me out.’ John’s driver wasn’t back yet so they took Paul’s car, Mal drove them back to Cavendish Avenue, found them something to eat while Paul sat with John. While Paul decided to join John wherever it was he’d gone.

 

That’s what it was, after all. A trip, a journey; a destination. Like Paris. John was already there so Paul may as well join him, it hadn’t even seemed like a question. When it’s your birthday you go to Paris and you take your best mate. 

 

Paul said, ‘Go on then,’ and John reached past his reaching hands and put the pill straight into Paul’s mouth.

 

Paul’s mouth becomes the doorway of his bedroom and John’s done it again, he’s put himself right there. Paul swallows.

 

“Told you you wouldn’t sleep,” John says.

 

John fills the doorway, the room, and Paul wonders how he can fit all of John inside himself. He begins to worry that he was wrong once again — what if he’s not the house after all? What’s containing him, then?

 

John comes and sits down on the foot of the bed. Paul sits up. He’s stark naked — he wouldn’t believe that he was in bed until there was nothing between him and the sheets. 

 

They face each other and Paul finds himself caught in John’s eyes. He wants to look away, he’s afraid, desperately afraid of finding nothing there; what if John’s eyes are chasms into emptiness, what if with this new sight Paul sees that he was wrong all this time? 

 

But his eyes are locked on John’s and there’s no breaking away from that. Time flows slinky-like between his two hands and he’s seeing John as he always sees him, and that lets breath escape from Paul’s body. John is John is John, is an eternal truth, but Paul is Paul too and Paul is there. Paul sees himself in John’s eyes, in John’s body, in the flaming tail of the comet that John’s arc across the universe leaves in its wake.  _ I am he as... _

 

Paul laughs out loud. John pulls off his shirt. They move closer. As one they lift their dominant hands, their own infinity mirrors, palm to palm, their fingers intertwine.

 

They fall onto the bed together as a waterfall. Paul feels himself splash around John, feels the drops of water that make up him and make up John meld and flow together, reforming into one being: one being with two heads, four legs, four arms, and two cocks between them. Paul kicks away the sheets, the bed is their sheet, a blank sheet for them to writhe their soul-shaping music, unhindered.

 

Eventually — sooner and later — John is as naked as Paul. The number of heartbeats don’t matter but what does matter is that in between one and the next, they’re kissing.

 

Paul hears a voice in his head and he knows it’s his own. The voice is saying, ‘I didn’t know you could kiss a bloke,’ and it’s so absurd, it’s so ridiculous, the idea of these divisions, so arbitrary, so very like the miserable human race to come up with new ways to be miserable.

 

John is humming, perhaps, maybe singing, maybe moaning. His lips vibrate so Paul’s do as well. His chest expands and contracts so Paul’s does as well. Their hands are everywhere. Paul finds that he’s got his hands full of John and is pulling at him, pulling him close, pulling his body over Paul’s like a blanket. Their cocks are trapped between their bodies and Paul can feel John’s, feel John feeling his, the house has shrunk again to the size of this room, a matchbox, a celestial triviality, and when John bites at his throat the noise that explodes from Paul ignites the universe and they are expanding, expanding.

 

“I want to kill you,” John growls, he’s got both of Paul’s wrists pinned. “And bring you back. I can, you know. I’ll reincarnate you. I’ll prove it.”

 

“I’ll haunt you.” Paul sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Be your ghost. Exorcise me but I won’t leave.”

 

John bears down on him, hips turning them both back into the ocean, and Paul keens on the ebb and sobs on the flow.

 

“I want to fuck you fucking me.” John’s words leave scorch marks on his throat. Paul digs his heels into the bed. “Can’t we, Paulie, can we?”

 

“Anything. Anything.”

 

The night went on forever. John saw to it. Every time Paul thought the day might break, he looked at John and darkness crashed over them again. They slept, and Paul woke feeling smug, woke to tell John that he was wrong, his prophecy that Paul would never sleep had not come true. But it turned out that he’d never been asleep at all. That he’d simply hitched a ride on a shooting star and lost the time as John found his way inside Paul’s body. His real body, not his house-body. It turns out that it’s as Paul always suspected: that he alone was born with a place inside him that’s only for John. And that he alone is what John has been looking for, is looking for, will die without finding.

 

The body beside him is warm, lean. The angles are different. The hip bones are heaven. The hair catching against his own swings him from side to side of awareness and home.

 

John.

 

Paul blinks, cautious. He doesn’t think he’s high anymore. Slowly he raises himself on one elbow. John is clinging to him in his sleep — until Paul realises that he’s still got that special sight about him. John isn’t sleeping. 

 

Paul clears his throat softly, trying to find his voice — but then John finds his lips, finds them with a finger. Paul understands, and doesn’t try to speak. John’s eyes are squeezed shut and Paul joins him. In silence and darkness, he finds him. They kiss forever. He touches John’s skin with fingers that are only his own. Even behind his eyelids he can tell the sun is up, but in here it’s that forever night and they’re still exploring it together. John whimpers when Paul thumbs over his nipple. Paul moans when John’s fingers dig into his thigh. They’re fused together, they move together, they stoke one fire together, sparks flying between them, burning them to the ground, Paul is gasping and shaking and John is biting his lip, grunting softly as Paul finds the sweet spot and rides it, rides it on an ever-mounting wave that crests in desire and fulfillment and god -- 

 

\-- oh god, that’s John. That’s John crying out, spilling across his stomach, digging blunt fingernails into Paul’s flesh. And that’s Paul, that’s Paul’s own flesh. It isn't nighttime anymore and this is happening. 

 

 He kisses John one last time, and lets the sun come up.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, enjoying, commenting, and flailing along with me! 
> 
> If you enjoy my writing I invite you to [click over to my blog](https://leboncanon.wordpress.com/). My above-mentioned writing partner and I have published a book and you can check out the first few chapters there. It is, ah, rather different in style to this but we are also working on an m/m romance novel so stay tuned! ♥♥♥s to all our lovely and encouraging fanpeople.


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